"The words of our Ordinal are clear enough": Bramhall on the Ordinal and the priestly ministry of consecrating the Eucharist

From Bramhall's The consecration and succession, of Protestant bishops justified (1658), here challenging Roman allegations that the Ordinal (1559) lacked the intention of ordaining priests to consecrate the Eucharist. Bramhall emphasises how the power to consecrate and administer the Eucharist is integral to the Ordinal's understanding of the presbyteral ministry:

I answer, that in our very essentiall forme of Priestly Ordination, Priestly power and authority is sufficiently expressed; we need not seeke for a needle in a bottle of hay. The words of our Ordinall are cleare enough ... in these words, 'whose sins thou doest remit they are remitted,' that is not onely by Priestly absolution: but by preaching, by baptising, by administring the holy Eucharist, which is a meanes to applie the alsufficient sacrifice of Christ, for the remission of Sinnes. He who authoriseth a man to accomplish a worke, doth authorise him to use all meanes which tend to the accomplishment thereof.

... this Priestly power to consecrate is conteined in these words, 'Be thou a faithfull dispenser of the word of God, and Sacraments.' And afterwards, when the Bishop delivers the holy Bible into the hands of those who are ordeined Priests, 'Have thou authority to preach the word of God, and Administer the Sacraments.' We do not deny, but Deacons have been admitted to distribute and Minister the Sacraments, by the Command or permission of Priests, or as Subservient unto them: but there is as much difference between a subservient distribution of the Sacrament, and the Dispensing or Administring of it, as there is betweene the Office of a Porter who distributeth the almes at the gate, and the Office of the Steward who is the proper dispenser of it. Looke to it Gentlemen; If your owne Ordination be valide, Ours is as valide, and more pure.

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Why I support the ordination of women: a High Church reflection

A number of commenters on this blog have asked about my occasional expressions of support for the ordination of women to all three orders. With some hesitation, I have decided to post a summary of my own views on this matter. The hesitation is because I have sought on this blog to focus on issues and themes which can unify those who identify with or have respect (grudging or otherwise!) for what we might term 'classical' Anglicanism (the Anglicanism of the Formularies and - yes - of the Old High Church tradition). Some oppose the ordination of women (and I have friends and colleagues who do so, Anglo-Catholic, High Church, and Reformed Evangelical). Some of us support it (again, friends and colleagues covering a wide range of theological traditions). Below, I have organised my thinking around 5 points (needless to say, no reference to Dort is implied). 1. The Declaration for Subscription required of clergy in the Church of Ireland states: (6) I promise to submit ...

How the Old High tradition continued

Charles Gore's 1914 letter to the clergy of his diocese, ' The Basis of Anglican Fellowship ', can be regarded as a classical expression of the Prayer Book Catholic tradition. A key part of the letter - entitled 'Romanizing in the Church of England' - addressed the "Catholic movement", questioning beliefs and practices within it which tended to "a position which makes it very difficult for its extremer representatives to give an intelligible reason why they are not Roman Catholics". Gore provides the outlines of an alternative account and experience of catholicity within Anglicanism, defined by three characteristics. What is particularly interesting about these characteristics is their continuity with the older High Church tradition. Indeed, the central characteristic as set out by Gore was integral to High Church claims over centuries: To accept the Anglican position as valid, in any sense, is to appeal behind the Pope and the authority of t...

'Whether the Lutheran Churches have right Ordinations and perfect succession of Bishops': Jeremy Taylor, 'Episcopacy Asserted', and Lutheran orders

Amidst the bitter controversies over episcopacy in the Three Kingdoms during the early 1640s, controversies which had become war in Scotland in 1637 and then in England in 1642, Jeremy Taylor wrote his Laudian defence of episcopal order, The Sacred Order and Offices of Episcopacy Asserted and Maintained . He proposed in this work that the non-episcopal Reformed churches could have had episcopally-ordered clergy: Those good people might have had order from the bishops of England or the Lutheran churches, if at least they thought our churches catholic and Christian. Leaving aside the reality that, for example, French Protestants would have been placed in an invidious political position if they had done as Taylor proposed, it is the reference to "the Lutheran churches" which is significant. To begin with, a large portion of the Lutheran churches - those in the German lands - were governed by a system of superintendency. It is almost inconceivable that Taylor was not aware of th...

laudable Practice

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